Editor’s note: This is one of several columns that will appear in The Courier this week chronicling the recent medical adventures of editor Mike Roark.

Friday was one of those wild days that can come along once or twice in a lifetime. It shapes the moment, and the rest of your life.

To say I nearly died would be a wild exaggeration, but I’m told I did have a mild heart attack Friday morning. The good news is the episode occurred in the cardiac cath lab at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center as Dr. Dal-Yuan Wang was working to put a stent into a clogged artery on the right side of my heart.

My chest got really tight and I broke a good sweat in the cool room during this episode. One of the nurses quietly slipped a nitroglycerin tablet under my tongue and then gently stroked my head in an effort to help calm me down.

I was in a good place, and I knew that. I mean really, if you’re going to have a heart attack, what better place than in a room at the hospital with a highly trained doctor and a collection of great nurses and technicians who know what they’re doing?

I helped break the tension in the room by leading the nurses in a rendition of Jimmy Buffett’s song Margaritaville while we all awaited the arrival of another cardiologist, Dr. Sastry Prayaga, to join our little party.

We were just breaking into another Buffett tune, The Pascagoula Run, when we had to get back to work when Dr. Prayaga arrived.

The docs got my stent in place without any further problems, then I had a chat with Dr. Prayaga about my condition.

It seems that both big arteries on the right and left sides of my heart were clogged and I needed the stents. After the episode, the docs decided I’d come back in a few weeks to get the stent in my left artery.

I also have a number of smaller arteries that are clogged but they are too small for a stent, and with the heart disease I was diagnosed with, I’m told I’m not a candidate for bypass surgery.

Dr. Prayaga told me it was just a matter of time until I had a heart attack because of the condition of my heart. It wasn’t a matter of if, but rather when, a heart attack would come. I’m grateful that my timing was so good Friday morning.

After the stent was installed, I spent the rest of Friday and part of Saturday in the ICU with five bags of meds, including more nitro and a blood thinner, dripping into my arm.

I was tired but felt much better than I expected to feel. My young bride, Rosemary, was with me most of Friday and came back Saturday to spend more time with me and to give me instructions she didn’t think I understood the first time I heard the information from my ICU nurse, Rose.